


Death's Precursor

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Lives, Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear of Death, Force God Ahsoka Tano, Godess Ahsoka Tano, Hurt Ahsoka Tano, Immortality, Insomnia, Nightmares, Post-Mortis Arc (Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Protective Anakin Skywalker, The Force, The Son - Freeform, The World Between Worlds (Star Wars), morai - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29313810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: When she dies in her dreams she doesn't wake. Ahsoka doesn't even know how that's possible, but it's not the only obstacle Mortis has left her with.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53





	Death's Precursor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zoeff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoeff/gifts).



> oof i thought about that whole dying in ur dreams and waking up cause we cant comprehend it and was like well ahsoka has died so why not write some whump

It’s fairly common knowledge that because the mind doesn’t know what happens after death, when you die in your dreams you wake up.

Ahsoka has known this, was even taught it in class, but it is a vast and prominent contradiction of their teaching: death isn’t the end.

There is no end, there is no beginning, there is the force. 

There are force ghosts, and there are imprints left throughout time. But no matter what, there is no wisdom shared of what comes after death, and at most it is told as if they were coming home. Becoming one with the force. She finds this incredibly unfair. The force resides within every living thing, yet not everyone is sensitive. 

So what did that mean for their deaths? What did that mean for their dreams? Ahsoka wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know. Especially not now, after Mortis, after her death, when her dreams do not stop when she crashes to the ground.

Where she doesn’t wake when she dies. It is horror. It is darkness. Suffocation. An empty listlessness that she has no ability to wade through. It holds her like tar and she is forced to sit and wait.

There is no force in her sleep, her lips are seemingly glued shut, and it is the same pitch darkness that had come from the tapping of the Son’s fingers against her forehead. She has to wonder if she’d experienced death in any other way would her dreams and unconscious deaths have substance.

She doesn’t always remember her many, many, nighttime deaths. But she knows they are consistent, an every night, and every nap basis. Every waking moment when she escapes or is saved from the depths sizzle with pain.

The sheet being pulled off her corpse as she breathes once again, her master’s worried face pinched above. A comforting hand cupping her cheeks as tears stream down her face and her body quakes from her freedom.

She dies everytime she sleeps and when in the depths she never knows if she will wake. Anakin takes to rowsing her himself, and never has she appreciated and hated it more, it muddles her thoughts. He had woken her from death itself, how was she to know if she’d died in her sleep then? If it wasn’t just a dream? 

He seems to sense this but when he makes moves to retreat or give her some space, she never lets him leave, childishly she tucks herself into his side and he doesn’t let go. The chosen one tugs his little sister closer while wondering if a trip to the mind healers is in order.

Anakin isn’t sure if they could do anything. So he does what he can, cradles her close as she weeps into his tunic, wakes her up when her force signature recedes in the darkness of night, not dying like he’d first thought and feared but swept over by something he did not know.

Anakin doesn’t know who’s been losing more sleep, Ahsoka in her fear and bouts of insomnia, or him constantly checking on her throughout the night. The togruta doesn’t explain what happens when she dreams, but the raw panic and confusion mirrors her birth from death after the son.

It’s a no brainer really, especially since this had only started happening after that damn planet. 

* * *

His padawan’s head lolls, it falling again and again against his shoulder as they sit near the fire. The nearby clones watch the scene with pained eyes, figuring the mission so far had been all too taxing already on the girl.

It hadn’t been really, but Anakin didn’t do anything to brush the concerned looks off, instead he pulled her under his arm. Instinctually the togruta tucked up her legs, turning into his warmth so she was practically in his lap.

She fell asleep the second his hand ran over her back lekku. It was his turn for the first watch anyway, Rex would also be up to keep watch, so Anakin let himself fall into the force. Wrapping protectively around her, Anakin keeps her from falling too far into the depths, warding off the energy of the fanged god he is sure he feels at the very bottom of the empty pool.

A chirping caw of a bird nearly pulls him from his task, Anakin brushes it off with a shake of his head, his bangs brushing over his face.

“I got you,” he assures mindlessly against her montrals. 

* * *

They get separated and it certainly wasn’t an ideal situation. The comms were down, the air was frigid, and Ahsoka would eventually have to sleep without her master there to wake her up.

The togruta finds a cave that shouldn’t even be considered a cave. At most it's a hole, one just barely big enough for her to crawl into and curl up, it’s dangerous because she could potentially be boxed in if she was noticed, but otherwise it was protecting her from the elements and would have to do for now.

The girl didn’t want to sleep, her eyes drifting shut every now and again, fear would be keeping her up if she hadn’t been so vigilant on forcing that emotion out into the force. It’s that taxing action that pulls her into the dark, the cold doesn’t help.

Distant whispers chitter in her montrals as she sits in the dark. Molten lava without the oppressing heat overtaking her limbs, holding her hostage. A thousand seas weigh her down, entomb her.

Snow speckles over her hovel, hiding her from potential predators, and ultimately from her master as he pummels through the dust. Her signature dropping off back into the elusive depths, letting him know she was falling asleep, whether that be due to the weather or exhaustion he didn’t know or care, he just had to find her.

The moment he did he’d bring her to the mind healers, this couldn’t go on, not when their lives were so hectic he wouldn’t be able to wake her from every nightmare. The fact that she had nothing but nightmares now filled him with guilt.

If he’d been stronger, more diligent, the Son would have never encompassed her in the dark. Not in the waking world, and certainly not in her sleep. Mortis was behind them, the son was behind them, and yet she still was his victim.

However faint her signature is, it still sits within reach, and his brow quirks in confusion at the snowy hill that bleeds her signature. There is no mound that indicates her body was recently buried, no hint of her on the surface, so he digs.

He digs and digs, frantically, and savagely, his sodden glove starting to let his real hand tinge with frost. When his hand goes straight into the earth and the snow falls, the wool clad togruta is revealed, her darker lips tinged an ever deeper blue.

Her insulated space is warmer than the outside world, and he hates to pull her back into the frigid cold even if it’s only for a second before she’s braced against his chest. 

* * *

The mind healers keep her for days, it drives him mad, likely her as well. They don’t let him in, fearing her recent dependency could morph into attachment. When Ahsoka steps out, she looks drained of life itself. Walking like her feet were weights and her legs were jelly. Anakin is quick to offer an arm, watching with each sluggish blink as she leans into his side.

“I’m tired,” she murmurs softly, and he knows. She’s been tired, exhausted, for far too long, and although she’d done nothing to deny it, Ahsoka hadn’t outright admitted it once.

“I know snips, c’mon you can sleep in my cabin,” if he’s honest the offer is more for himself than her, sure his bed is nicer than her own, with more blankets than hers as well. Also he didn’t share quarters with the other padawans, so her sleeping in his room would be a step up. But it’d give him another chance to monitor the force, test the results of whatever had been done. That and potentially ward off the son if there was still something of him left. 

She curls on his bed without any hesitation, moving to grab the blankets but gives in when she notices him move to tuck her in. It reminds her of her days back in the creche, when she’d be too anxious and energized to sleep and they’d swaddle her in covers and send sleep suggestions through the force until her eyes couldn’t stay open any longer.

The pillow is fluffed under her head, the covers tucked under her chin and under her feet, her master's chest puffed with pride. 

“Skyguy?” it barely breeches her lips, she’s honestly surprised Anakin heard it, but he does.

“Yeah snips?” his hand is warm on her shoulder, waiting eagerly for her request.

“You’ll wake me up if I can’t?” tears well up at the thought, and he is quick to assure, quick to wipe them away.

“Yeah snips, right away,” she accepts that, closing her eyes and curling closer to where his body makes the bed dip. Her dreams do not echo with death, nor does ash or brimstone sit under her tongue, and the tar has thinned. It is just short of manageable.

Anakin wakes her but she’d been close, on the precipice really of waking up herself. Maybe next time she could, but it was a start, a good start. 

After sometime, she doesn’t die in her sleep at all, that’s when the tar is nothing more than ink and she wakes up on her own, surprising Anakin who out of instinct had stepped in, his hand a mere inch from her shoulder.

“Morning snips,” he croons happily, and she returns his smile almost dopily. 

“Morning Skyguy,”

* * *

The dreams only return after he is gone, she learns to fight the oppressing weight of depth in her sleep on her own, she has to or she’ll never wake again. And if death is anything like her dreams, she almost understands why her brother had fallen so hard in the pursuit of conquering death.

But in the end, that doesn’t matter at all: the debt for her first resurrection must be paid. Mortis calls her home, infuses her with latent power, prepares her for her battle with the Aboleth. Claims her as the ruler of the world between worlds.

She never has to fear death again, and when she does, it is everyone's death but her own.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


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